UK-Awesome Old Lady of the Week: Dr Marta Raquel Zabaleta

Written by Joanne Lau

Awesome Old Lady of the Week: Dr Marta Raquel Zabaleta

Joanne Lau talks to the 78-year-old political refugee who was imprisoned in both Argentina and Chile and continues to inspire through her work as a writer, poet and essayist.

Posted on 03/09/2015

Marta was granted asylum in the UK in 1976. She went on to earn a D. Phil. from the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University and became a senior lecturer and researcher at Middlesex University. Though now retired, Marta is still an ardent social activist and cultural promoter.
You arrived to the UK as a political refugee in 1976. Can you tell me more about the events that led up to this?
I was born in Argentina in 1937. I’d studied to be an accountant, but when I finished, I decided I didn’t like the practice, so in 1963 I moved to Chile to do postgraduate studies in socio-economic development. During my time there, I became interested in the society of Chile and how different it was from Argentina, even though we’re right next door. The people were more politicised and it really opened my eyes.
After my degree, I worked for the UN in Chile on women’s issues. Chile was changing dramatically. It went from a very conservative government to a Christian democracy in 1964 and the left was forced to reorganise.
I joined a new left-wing political party. I stayed in Chile, got married, became a lecturer/professor of economics and had a child. I thought I was going to be there forever.
Then there was a coup in Chile in 1973. I lost my job, was put in prison, and then, eventually, expelled from Chile.
What happened then?
The Chilean regime wanted to have me killed, but Argentina asked for my life. I was released from the concentration camp in which I was being held and taken to Argentina across the Andes in an old bus, with my husband and baby daughter, and another 15 adults of various nationalities and 18 children.
I found it very hard to get a new job, but we lived there for three years. We were still recovering from the trauma of what had happened in Chile, when there was a coup in Argentina as well. It was horrendous – the worst dictatorship in Latin American history. They imprisoned my husband and I was interrogated repeatedly in the house of government over a period of months.

“I respect my neighbours and I love some of them, but I can’t talk to them about what I’ve been through and what I’m passionate about. I guess that’s the price of being a rebel in your home country – you are condemned to be exiled to a country where you are a novelty.”

Finally they expelled us from the country. We count ourselves lucky that all three of us – my husband, my daughter, and I – made it out, though we lost everything. We were given asylum in the UK.

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